A few days after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a Bombardier private jet flew from the US to England. On board was a Soviet-born former oil executive, Eugene Shvidler, whose arrival triggered a scramble across Whitehall that could yet reshape the UK’s sanctions regime.
Having been alerted to the jet’s presence by an automated flight-tracking tweet, officials were initially ignorant of the man on board, according to emails obtained by the FT. “I don’t know much about Shvidler,” a civil servant in the Foreign Office told colleagues. After doing a “quick google” the official identified him as a “Russian businessman, living in the US, with links to [redacted]”.
The name removed from the email was Roman Abramovich, who then owned Chelsea Football Club and whom the Foreign Office would put under sanctions as a “pro-Kremlin oligarch” days after Shvidler landed. Their “close association” was then used to impose sanctions on Shvidler.